The horror film written and directed by Yaguchi Shinobu presents the filmmaker in a new light. The Japanese director, specialised in feel-good “zero to hero” films, switches to an eerie, creepy and gruesome type of storytelling.
Dollhouse tells the story of Yoshie (Nagasawa Masami) and Tadahiko (Seto Koji), who are married and have a 5-year-old daughter named Mei (Totoka Honda). The little girl dies and after her loss, the mother falls in a vortex of despair, in which a doll seems to substitute her daughter. Therapy dolls for infant loss exist in the real world and have been proven to help heal parents in mourning. The film shows this practice in the way Yoshie treats the antique doll as her child: she trims her nails, combs her hair and takes family pictures with her. What comes across as a mental distortion, is overcome once Yoshie gets pregnant again, with another girl: Mai (Aoi Ikemura). The little girl will become attached to her mother’s doll, that seems to cause mysterious incidents. That is when the film’s thrilling element starts to elevate, making viewers fluctuate in a state of doubt as to whether it’s all in the characters’ minds or whether the doll is cursed. New discoveries lead to further insight on the backstory of the fiendish doll.
The picture is subtle in blending parental anxieties with references to the ancient traditions of Japanese culture and religion, whilst also giving a nod to the horror subgenre of killer dolls. These types of films have a long tradition in Western cinema, that goes back to the Thirties with Tod Browning’s The Devil Doll, where a scientist tried to create a formula to reduce people to one-sixth of their original size, to make the Earth’s limited resources last longer for an ever-growing population. A decade later, the British anthology Dead of Night featured a menacing ventriloquist’s dummy. Horror geeks will probably recall Talky Tina in the second season of The Twilight Zone; the clown doll in Poltergeist; Mr. Punch in Dolls; Baby Oopsy Daisy in Demonic Toys; Annabelle in The Conjuring Universe; Blade, Jester, and Pinhead in the Puppet Master franchise. Above all, the most iconic killer dolls that resonate in the collective consciousness of our era are undoubtably Chucky and M3GAN.
Yaguchi Shinobu gives the frightening dolls the Eastern touch, joining the club of J-Horror cineastes. The most representative Japanese horror films are without shadow of a doubt Hideo Nakata’s 1998 film Ring (Ringu), and Takashi Shimizu’s 2002 film Ju-On. Their defining ingredients are urban legends, curses and the supernatural. These elements of mystery can be found also in Yaguchi Shinobu’s film, featured in the 2025 NYAFF programme. Dollhouse viscerally confronts the feelings of guilt, the elaboration of grief and the fear of the unknown. The antique doll becomes a catalyst for all these themes, using the supernatural to explore the mundane. Therefore, Yaguchi Shinobu is definitely commendable for his introspective approach. Furthermore, the cast offers heart wrenching performances, that will overwhelm spectators with feelings of tension and discomfort. The child actresses are very natural, the parents trigger a sense of empathy and even the grandmother will draw the audience into a spiral of anguish.
On the other hand, the film’s denouement is ultimately inconsistent. Ambiguity is key to keep spectators hooked for most part of the picture. When Dollhouse decides to expose its supernatural intentions, it becomes more predictable. At this point, it loses its charm, that was determined by a sense of uncertainty whether the apparitions were projections of the psyche or otherworldly entities. Even the open ending seems to flatten the emotional depth with which the film kicked-off, making it comply to the rules of the horror genre, strategically providing the possibility for a sequel.
Final Grade: C+
Check out more of Chiara’s articles.
Photo Credits: © 2025 TOHO CO., LTD.